The first impression you get, if you’ve read this one right after, say, Twilight, is: ROB LOWE IS A BRILLIANT WRITER!! BRILLIANT!!! OK he isn’t. He is, however, a better writer than one might imagine. Also smarter and funnier and more interesting than one might imagine.
Lowe didn’t use a ghost writer for Stories I Only Tell My Friends and you can definitely hear that it’s his voice as he recounts his life story. He spends a chunk of the book on his childhood, the effect his parents’ divorce had on him, the effect the move to L.A. from Ohio had on him, his mother’s various new husbands and “illnesses,” and his struggle to break into show business.
He had been active with community theaters and theater troupes and such in Ohio, but when he moved out to L.A., he was shocked to find out that they didn’t have them there. It’s all casting calls and head shots and auditions. You’d think, in a town of actors like L.A., they’d have a rich amateur theater community. Apparently they don’t… or at least they didn’t in the 70s. I know, it’s shocking. Aren’t you shocked? Personally, I’m shocked.
Lowe has some great anecdotes and really spends a ton of time on “The Outsiders,” which was his first movie. He name-drops like crazy, but he himself is a “name,” so it doesn’t get in the way. And his anecdote about Cary Grant giving him a soap-on-a-rope is fairly awesome, so I will forgive the name-dropping.
His take on fame, and the screaming girls and stuff, is all pretty level-headed. He rarely brings up his looks unless it’s disparaging (kind of like, “I wouldn’t have hired a little pretty boy like me for that role either,” or whatever), and talks about the overwhelming and how surreal it was to be chased by the unholy legion screaming girls wherever he went.
The first time he experienced it was before “The Outsiders,” when he was on a TV show in high school. All these girls suddenly would chase him around and scream and go crazy, and all he could think was, “if I’m so hot, why don’t the girls in high school give me the time of day?” He said it was so impersonal, that it wasn’t even real and clearly had NOTHING to do with him. He said they were like actors and the audience in their own play. He came to the conclusion that if they really knew him, they wouldn’t like him.
He barely touches on the sex scandal that almost cost him his career, except to say he didn’t know the girls were underage (yeeeeuch), and nowadays people actually make their sex tapes on purpose so they can sell them to further their careers. But other than that, he doesn’t really go into detail. Could be for legal reasons, could be because it’s horribly embarrassing and he just doesn’t want to rehash it.
At any rate, I give Stories I Only Tell My Friends three (out of five…what?) thumbs up!
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